Consolidated Grant for the Centre for Particle Physics at Royal Holloway, University of London

Experimental particle physics addresses some of the fundamental questions about the structure and behaviour of the Universe at the level of the smallest particles of matter, the quarks and the leptons, and the forces acting between them. We are exploring fundamental properties of particles at the the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and

also exploring the nature of dark matter and neutrinos by developing and employing novel detection systems. We are contributing to the continued operation of the ATLAS project at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. We have constructed and commissioned electronic systems and the software that drives them.

From the beginning of data taking we have played a leading role in searches for exotic particles, the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, and studies of the properties of the heaviest particle discovered so far: the top quark. We are heavily invested in the upgrades to the ATLAS detector, which will allow for the collection of

large datasets, capable of probing even more fundamental questions at the energy frontier. Although there is ample indirect evidence for the existence of dark matter as inferred from its gravitational interactions, it has not yet been directly detected in terrestrial laboratories. Direct detection experiments seek to observe dark matter scattering on target detector

nuclei. We explore these issues through a world-leading dark matter search with the Lux-Zeplin detector which uses liquid xenon and with the development of a large dark matter detector DarkSide-20k which uses liquid argon. The group's expertise in high pressure TPCs is now being utilised to carry out measurements relevant to the study of neutrinos

as part of the DUNE and Hyper-K experiments. Using detection techniques similar to those of our dark matter research, we are also involved in the the puzzle surrounding the matter anti-matter asymmetry in the Universe by studying the elusive neutrino particle. We measure CP violation in the lepton sector

using the T2K long baseline neutrino experiment in Japan. Our expertise in accelerator science will allow us to carry out studies for the machine-detector interface for the High Luminosity LHC and ILC. We will also expand the interactions between our phenomenology group and the experimental Neutrino and Dark Matter

communities.